No No No No NO!

Nearly everyone has to experience the death of a parent. I watched my mother's body waste away over the course of months. I watched her take her last breath. I watched the casket lid close over her empty vessel. For years I knew I would outlive her. It is still painful, but I can accept that this is how it has to be.

My brother has been in pain for a year, he was misdiagnosed with herniated disks and received treatments that would not assuage the agony, that would not save his life. A year ago he carried 220 pounds on his handsome six-foot frame with barely a scrap of fat on him, and over thirty pounds has slipped away. In high school he held the bench-press record for non-football players, and even more impressively he was the fastest soccer player in the whole city. A year ago he could still pick me up over his head as if I weighed nothing.

Now we know he has bone cancer. An insidious disease is wrecking his very foundation. I can't accept this.

Of my five siblings, I shared the most active relationship with him. We climbed trees, skated on the pond, hiked in the woods, caught crawdads in the creek, biked through the stripper pits, rollerbladed through downtown, played flashlight tag on the farm. He made life an adventure. No one knows what long-term effects the treatments could have on his body. No one knows if there will even be a long-term. I can't accept this.

There aren't many people I love as much as I love him. Part of me died with my mother. I can't face losing him or any more of me. I can't.